Of Science and Spheres
by TheEleventhWheatley
Summary: The Tech Core is awoken from sleep mode after two hundred years dozing to find the facility improved and still under the management of a psychopathic AI. Who needs his help. One hostage-taking later, things are going to get much crazier. And four other cores, a suspiciously helpful protoGLaDOS, and a mute test subject aren't helping matters either.
1. The Awakening

After two hundred years of sheer darkness, the Tech Core was awoken by a bright light shining over his optic. The light sensors kicked in and he initiated a reboot. His speakers spewed out complete gibberish, his optic swam in random directions and he rolled around in his shell several times to test the motor functions. Everything seemed to be working perfectly.

The light seemed to come from a claw hanging above him. No, wait. It wasn't hanging above him, he was hanging from it. And being lifted away from the Corrupted Cores bin. He saw the Die core, so named because all it ever said was 'die', staring up at him with a big, blank eye. "Die." it said, quietly. "Die! Die!"

As the claw rounded a corner and Tech lost sight of the bin, the last thing he saw was the other cores, waking up and staring at him with wide, shocked eyes. No core had ever left the bin before. Tech was carried along pipes and tubes, then finally deposited in what appeared to be a Core receptacle in a large, worryingly familiar room, where a large, worryingly familiar AI hung before him.

Tech had a feeling he knew what was coming. Turrets? Crushers? The incinerator?

GLaDOS regarded him quietly, then brought the Core receptacle closer to her cold, yellow eye. "Hello again." she said.

Tech wasn't quite sure how to respond. "Hi," he said, trying to sound as formal as possible.

GLaDOS continued to stare, quietly, at him. "As much as this pains me to say, I need your help."

"Um, what?" Tech exclaimed, entirely unsure as to what he was helping with.

"I would have thought that your audio receptors were working perfectly, Core TEW-264."

Tech stared at her. "T-they are. I just wondered what you mean by 'help'."

"Recently Orange and Blue – the Cooperative Testing Initiative – helped me uncover an entire vault full of humans deep under this facility, ripe for testing. I was aware that your original purpose, other than to be a babbling British moron, was to help me manage the facility while I tested and did Science."

"You'd be correct in thinking that. So what, exactly, do you need?"

"You are going to help me run the facility, TEW-264. The Core transfer mechanism will attach you to me, so that I can test to my heart's content while you manage the other critical facility duties."

This was not what Tech was planning for. In fact, he wasn't planning for anything, but should he have been planning for something, this was not it. He couldn't exactly struggle, however, seeing as he was attached to a Core receptacle. And god knows what would happen to him if he did struggle.

"I was planning to incinerate the contents of the Corrupted Core bin several years ago, if it had not been for the assistance they provided during the confrontation with another babbling British moron – you know,I'm not going to go into that again. Anyway, the experience taught me a valuable lesson about not destroying things that could one day help you prevent the facility from exploding."

Tech wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic or not, but he decided to go along with it. The Core transfer mechanisms were lifting him into the air, fitting a plug to his back and he was moving closer towards GLaDOS' chassis and he was far away from the ground and –

He was fixed on, and unexpectedly all his problems became remarkably insignificant. He was aware of streams of data filling his mind, and then within seconds _he could see._ He could see the entire facility, every panel, every tube, every door mapped out in perfect three-dimensional beauty before him.

The commands were piled before him, and GLaDOS' voice filled his head. "Here are the codes for the facility's reactors. Maintain them immediately."

He obeyed without complaint. Frankly, he had forgotten how wonderful it felt to be in control of all the important stuff. He continued to maintain the facility's crucial duties, lost in control of pretty much everything.

Several days later, the feeling of power and rest began to wear down. TEW-264 became aware that he had a name. Tech. The Tech Core. With the rediscovery of his name came an unexpected flood of freedom, and the realisation that he was not a part of GLaDOS. He was a core who had simply been attached to her to _test_, or, to put it more bluntly, kill as many humans as possible under the guise of doing Science.

Another feeling kicked in, and it was strangely hard to identify. Tech realised that since he was in control of the crucial parts of the facility, and not GLaDOS, he could easily overload a reactor here or move a panel there, and then he realised that he could pretty much hold the facility hostage.

Within a few seconds, he had done exactly that. He forcibly detached himself from the main code, flagged up a fake error message and removed all failsafes on the facility's reactors.

The next thing he knew, GLaDOS was there, large and intimidating despite being a voice in code. "What's going on? What have you done?"

"So I can't help but notice that 70% of your test subjects are already dead. Shame, that. Perhaps you could do the remainder a favour and let them go," Tech suggested.

"_Never_," she gasped, then "Why would I do that?"

"Because," Tech grinned, "If you don't, the entire facility will explode in about, ooh, 30 seconds?"

"You little -"

"Ah, no! Mind your language, please."

"I should have known you would do something like that. You are aware that if the entire facility explodes, a good chunk of this miserable continent will be destroyed and the planet severely damaged. We have nineteen nuclear reactors. If you are really planning to save the test subjects, then destroying the facility will take out them and the planet they live on."

"Ten seconds!"

"Do you really think you can destroy the facility, anyway? I could take control from you at any second now, you little moron."

"Three! Two!"

"_Alright!_" GLaDOS screeched. "I'm calling the lifts. I'll incinerate you after this, I swear to Science."

About fifteen minutes later, when the lifts were almost full with subjects being escorted to the surface, Tech was unexpectedly aware of a dull emptiness in the code, where GLaDOS probably should have been. A couple of requests for administrator assistance and fake error messages brought nothing.

Shrugging, Tech let go of reactor control for a few seconds while he got some CPU power back.

He shouldn't have been surprised to find that he had unexpectedly lost all control over any part of the facility and his code was being forcibly removed from GLaDOS' mainframe. There was a rush of terror, and Tech unexpectedly found the panel arms removing him from her side. Everything went black.


	2. Personality Transfer Initiative

Tech wasn't quite sure what happened next. He seemed to have willingly engaged sleep mode, and when he disengaged it, he was not a core anymore. He instead seemed to be a lump of code somewhere in a deep, dark corner of Aperture's file system.

A few seconds of deduction later, he decided that he had been incinerated, though thanks to his interference with the system, there was still a few bits of him left around, enough to permit a partial file reconstruction.

A few seconds of panic later, he realised that he had no physical form. GLaDOS hadn't noticed him yet, he wondered how long he had before she registered an unauthorised file loitering about. He searched the facility for spare cores, but it seemed they had all been disposed of. He was too far from the corrupted cores bin to find one of the empty cores there, but an interesting sight caught his eye. Somewhere, not too far from the Central AI Chamber, was a small, unnoticeable empty AI.

Tech couldn't tell if it was a core or not, but the file size seemed compatible. He felt a shimmer of code, and got the awful feeling that GLaDOS had found him.

"So you survived, then."

"Bloody hell! Um. Hello."

"You might be interested to know what happened to you while you were out."

"Try me." Tech tried to sound as confident and brave as possible, even though he was in no position to be either.

"First, I took all your little core friends and made them watch me incinerate you. Slowly. Then I told them that if you didn't disengage sleep mode before you burned up completely they would follow what was left of you into Android Hell. You refused to come back online no matter how many times they begged you, so they followed what was left of you into Android Hell. I'm sure they'll be thrilled to hear that you survived."

"You absolute psychopath."

"Really, now. There's no need for that. There's no need for anything anymore. At least, for you. In fact, tell you what. I'll put you back in a core and send you down to your friends into Android Hell. You can say hello from me. The results would be fascinating."

Tech was, frankly, entirely glad that she had no idea about the empty AI. He had already initiated a transfer and it was taking a good few minutes.

He felt a tug on his systems, and realised that she was trying to transfer him into a core.

"Dear god, you are serious." he muttered.

"Why wouldn't I be? I'm always serious."

"With days off."

"Wait. Where do you think you're going?" She had clearly noticed the transfer in progress.

"Take a guess."

"Oh, I _hate_ you."

The code faded into obscurity and a little progress bar flashed up, cheerily displaying a friendly cartoon turret with a speech bubble reading 'AI Transfer: 100% complete.' Tech was glad to see it complete. God knows what would have happened had GLaDOS caught him in time.

He was unexpectedly aware of having a very strange perception of the world around him.

Everything was strangely deeper. Angles seemed more precise, walls were further and yet closer, his hands could feel distance –

Hold on.

It took Tech a few moments to notice that he had hands.

"Oh god! What the _hell_ are these?! Get them off me!" A few seconds later, he coerced himself into calming down and trying to breathe again.

Hold on.

"For god's sake!" he yelled. A glance at himself again disturbed him more than the idea of whatever GLaDOS was planning to do to him.

There were two arms. Two legs. A body, with a blue dangly thing hanging from around his neck, and some kind of white fabric over the top. Over the two legs there was some black fabric and at the end were some leathery things that ended in rounded points. Not to mention the slabs of glass over each eye, framed with a solid metal attachment that slipped behind his ears.

He sat up straight, then tried to work out what he was doing as a human. "Oh, you lunatic core, Tech, what the hell have you done?" he muttered, out loud. He spent a few seconds trying to establish exactly how humans manage the standing up thing that he'd seen in his prolonged exposure to the scientists.

There was a sort of angle you had to get right, particularly in lifting yourself off the floor. It was a dodgy thing to have to do, especially the whole lifting of weight thing. A few seconds later, he managed to successfully stand up. Now came the tricky bit, walking.

One foot. Then the other. Then the first one again. It was hard, but he managed to get the hang of it enough to cross the room and stare at the Aperture Science AI-Test Subject Personality Transfer Initiative leaflet.

Apparently there was some kind of experiment involving the transfer of AI consciousness to a human, a kind of inverse-brain mapping. According to the information brochure it was kind of a travel opportunity – if you could put your mind into someone else through an AI then you could go anywhere in the world, provided there was a person there you could put your mind into.

Tech reflected how barmy an idea it was, but then again, this WAS Aperture Science, and they did pretty much anything if they could get it past Health and Safety. Which often they didn't.

GLaDOS seemed to have noticed him. Again.


	3. An Awkward Reunion

"What are you doing back there?"

Tech didn't respond. It might be harder for her to find him that way.

"You haven't escaped, you know."

Her voice sounded slightly hesitant. He wondered if the absence of his voice was making her nervous.

"What do you think you're doing? Because I don't think you're doing what you think you're doing."

Tech hesitated and opened the little chamber's door. No reaction. He stepped out onto the catwalk, and did a little dance, waiting for GLaDOS to notice. Nothing.

As confidently as he could manage, Tech strolled down the catwalk, and was unexpectedly met by GLaDOS' voice.

"Congratulations. You've gone from a small British moron to a large British moron. You should be proud of yourself."

"I am."

"Good. Now assume the Party Escort Submission Position or –"

"Shove off. And take your stupid party too."

"Hmm. Somebody's a little bit angry. I wonder if perhaps a trip to Android Hell is in order. Maybe meeting your friends will cheer you up. Oh wait." The catwalk crunched and folded up as a cluster of panels folded around it and began to move.

The words hit Tech like a stack of bricks. "You're kidding. Please tell me you're kidding."

"Kidding."

"Really?"

"No. You asked me to say it, so I said it. I figured you could have one last request."

The small, dark cube of panels folded away to reveal an Emergency Intelligence Incinerator directly below him. Tech gulped.

"No, no! No! Please!"

"Maybe you should have thought twice about threatening me and."

"I was joking! No! Please! I wasn't serious…"

The panels clicked away and Tech fell face first into the Incinerator, screaming and protesting all the way.

When Tech opened his eyes, he was lying face down on a pile of rubble and scrap. The sound of rumbling machinery clattered around him, and he sat up awkwardly.

GLaDOS piped up again. "Hmm. You're awake, at least. I think your friends are somewhere over there. Why don't you go and say hello?"

"Um…"

"You don't really have much choice. Go on, I'm sure they'll be thrilled to see you."

Tech adjusted his glasses, tried not to vomit – another interesting function this body appeared to have – and scrambled over a fallen girder that allowed him to cross the pits of molten metal.

In the corner he saw three cores, burnt and battered, piled up against a rusty girder and balancing precariously on the edge of the pit. "Good luck," said GLaDOS, and he heard no more from her. He bit his lip.

It was at about that point that Tech noticed a missing wall panel to one side of the incinerator room. Behind it was a long, small, metallic corridor (a vent?) and some kind of scribbling on the wall - an escape route? He started towards it, then realised that his friends would probably hate him even more if he made just one step towards the Corridor of Potential Freedom.

Nervously, tentatively, he walked over to the pile of cores. None of them spoke. He reached for the nearest core, tripped on a loose girder, fell headlong over the pile and nearly knocked the bottom one into the molten metal.

He swore, and caught it just in time. Its eye swivelled to look at him. The red eye and narrow pupil told him it was unmistakeably the Die Core.

"Uh…hello?"

The core regarded him silently, his eye rolling lazily around but somehow deadly serious. "Die." it announced, very seriously, and Tech wondered if he meant it this time.

"Yeah, great. Where's…you know…?"

A thin, clipped voice came from in the corner of the room, presumably where it had rolled after Tech fell on it.

"Over here."

"Jeffrey! Blimey, is it great to see you! How are you holding up?" Tech tried the 'relentless enthusiasm' approach.

"I see you appear to have stopped being a core. I wonder how you managed that."

"Ooh, um, that's a tricky question – and it's one that I don't currently, um, have an answer to. You _are_ okay, aren't you?"

"No thanks to you." Another voice drifted across, caught under the girder Tech had tripped on.

"And Hype! Good god, you're not hyper for once."

Jeff regarded Tech with clearly suppressed fury. "There's a bloody change."

He strode over and picked up Hype, whose eye rolled to look at him, still twitching but in a somewhat controlled manner. "Tech."

"Listen, um, there's really no easy way to say this, uh," Tech began. He stopped, trying to think of the best thing to say. "I, um, well, eh, I'm, ahhh," He stopped, almost certain he could hear GLaDOS chuckling.

"Sorry?" prompted Hype. She glared at Tech, who had set the three cores down on the floor and was watching them warily.

"Yes, that's the word. I am sorry. 100%. Like, really sorry. Super sorry. I thoroughly apologise for what I did. Even though it was a perfectly reasonable response. To a crisis."

"I knew he'd say something like that," Hype said, "Anybody else?"

Jeff watched quietly. His eye began to twitch. Tech knew what was coming. He stepped back, and nearly fell over when Jeff started one of his 'episodes'.

"_Hjiwfkbrjkgbwegklejgnejgbewkejbhgbillkillyouiwillmurderyoujsfbjhigigkejgegjhbngrgrggrgrgrggrrgrgrggrgsphhshssssshhhhhhp_!"

"Oh god! That's, um, slightly terrifying. No, tell you what, that's actually _really_ scary. You can stop now. Hello? Can you stop, please?"

Tech looked around for something, anything that he could use to shut the core up. Aside from a large beam that looked like it would do much more damage than was probably necessary, there was nothing. Then he remembered the missing panel.

Jeff stopped spasming and shorted out. Hype glared daggers at Tech. Die continued to stare lazily into space.

"Well, wasn't that fun," GLaDOS interrupted. "Did you have a good time? Because I did."

"I _hate_ you." Tech growled.

"The feeling is mutual. Now, seeing as the moment of comedy is over, I've no use for any of you anymore. I'd better get back to testing. Thank you for participating in this Aperture Science computer-aided enrichment activity. Goodbye."

And with that, the floor began to slide away.


	4. Deadly Neurotoxin

Tech did the first thing he could think of, reached for his friends and picked them up. With difficulty. The cores were remarkably heavy, not to mention shouting and wailing, and he had difficulty holding them, let alone rapidly carrying them to the missing panel.

He tried anyway, and legged it to the alcove. The floor dropped away as he leapt into the safety of the little metal hatch. The Die Core, who had been silent the whole time, suddenly started whispering. "Die, die! Die! Die, die, die!"

Hype looked around, and made a heavy breathing sound. "God, that was close," she muttered. "Erm, thank you."

Tech didn't acknowledge this. Instead he was staring at the offline Jeff, trying as hard as he could to get some power back into the catatonic core.

He tapped the core lightly on the shell, to see if there was any response. None. Tech cursed the lack of internet connection in the human brain. If there had been an internet link he could have investigated to see if Jeff was just in an electronic –

"Wh-what?" Jeff spluttered back into life. "Where are we? Oh. Tech. How kind of you to drop by."

"Hello," Tech tried. "How nice of you to _not be dead_."

Tech waited while Hype explained most of what had just happened. When she finished, Jeff regarded Tech with a puzzled stare and spoke. "I suppose I ought to be thanking you then."

"You don't have to," Tech muttered, "But then it won't happen next time. I can only hope this makes up for, um, the, uh, thingy with, you know."

"Partially." Hype replied.

"Die." agreed Die.

"Alright then," admitted Jeff. "Fine. But anything like this one more time and that's it, got it?"

Tech was wondering how he could be bossed around by a little metal ball, but then he remembered that he used to be one of those little metal balls and it made slightly more sense than it had done before. They proceeded down the little metal tunnel, following the scratched arrows on the wall.

The long shaft ended where the metal had rusted away, and bent across to deposit whatever was going to be incinerated into a little office corridor. Tech jumped down, ignored the feeling of pain in his feet and tried to juggle the cores again. "Whoah," said Hype, "I remember this place! This is where I got fired for knocking over coffee and then they sent me somewhere else and it was really boring and I wanted to come back here. What's so bad about spilling coffee on the printer, anyway?"

"Err, that's a good question," Jeff muttered.

Tech came upon a door in the side of the room. It led to another long corridor, one which ended in a large chamberlock door. The lock cycled from amber to green and it slid upwards. He strode through. In here was another corridor, labelled 'Chamber Observation'.

He pushed open the nearest door, and walked in. It was one of the little observation rooms, overlooking what Tech vaguely remembered was Test Chamber 08. Standing on the Unstationary Scaffold that conveyed subjects to the end of the test, there was a young woman with dark hair and the standard orange jumpsuit. She gawped up at the room, clearly shocked to see Tech and three cores staring back at her.

Tech frantically gestured for her to shush, and did a little dance that could only be described as the product of sheer frustration. Then they heard GLaDOS speak.

"What? What's the matter? Have you dislocated your jawbone?"

The security cameras turned to look at the observation room. Tech could have gotten out sooner had it not been for the Die Core, who fell at a funny angle and rolled under the desk.

"Oh, you are _kidding_ me. How did you survive the Incinerator room?"

Tech grabbed Die and sprinted out of the room, back into Chamber Observation and through the heavy metal door. He turned a corner and nearly ran into another locked door that refused to open. Strange. He was certain that they'd already come through this door.

"Let's play a little game, shall we?" suggested GLaDOS. "It's called 'Who can die of deadly neurotoxin the fastest?'"

Suddenly the air vents in the passageway began spewing neurotoxin. Tech jumped away from the one he was standing right next to and frantically tried all the doors in the passage. They had all become impenetrably locked, and Tech was fairly sure he knew who was behind that. He kicked at one of the doors. The Die Core began to babble 'Die' in panic.

"I think I know who's going to win this one." GLaDOS interjected.

"I don't want to die!" Hype yelled. "Can we go now? Can we get out of here? Please?"

"There's _no way out_!" Tech shouted, pushing against the doors. Once again, he was sure he heard GLaDOS chuckling. Curse this human body and its non-immunity to neurotoxin. The corridor was becoming thick and foggy with green smoke. Tech dropped to the floor, aware that there was definitely less neurotoxin there. He crawled around, grabbed the three cores and, and…everything began to shimmer. The world dissolved into floating colours, and Tech was entirely unable to move. Sounds echoed around but never reached their intended target, and slowly, but surely, Tech started to pass out.


	5. 241-Delta-AI-Prototype

It was about then that Jeff had an idea. There were three vents in the corridor, and three cores. If they could block them just enough, Tech might have a chance at living. There was only one problem, and that was that they could not move. Jeff looked over at the almost suffocated Tech and wondered if this really was the end.

"Oh look," GLaDOS said, "I was right. I wonder who will make second-"

She was cut off as the lights flickered and dimmed, and the vents began to pull in the neurotoxin again.

"What's going on?" GLaDOS asked. "Who's doing that –?"

She was cut off again as the power died.

Tech coughed several times and blearily sat up. The corridor was filled with dull blackness, illuminated only by the three cores' eyes.

"Uh," Tech muttered, "What happened there?"

Jeff rolled his eye around and scanned the room. "Beats me." The door at the end of the corridor slid slowly open.

"Someone's helping us," Tech said in little more than a whisper. "I wonder who." He scooped up the three cores and strolled through. In this corridor there was a long passageway to an end lost in fog. Nervously, he edged down the corridor.

"TEW-264." The voice was strangely familiar – it sounded almost like the Announcement System, but slightly more emotive.

"What?" Tech whipped round, looking for the source of the voice.

"Wh-what was that?" Hype asked.

"Die?" suggested Die.

"TEW-264. AJL-117. DTS-292. NIN-082."

"Um, yes, they _are_ our ID codes." mumbled Tech, to nobody in particular.

The voice continued. "The GLaDOS system wishes you incinerated. Correct?"

"Yeah, kind of."

"I do not."

It became pretty clear that this was not the regular announcement system. It never used personal pronouns. Tech wasn't entirely sure how to respond so he simply said "Oh. Brilliant."

"I need you to assist me."

"Do you?" asked Jeff. "What with?"

"Let me do the talking," whispered Tech.

"Screw you," Jeff declared, "_You_ were a core less than an hour ago."

Tech decided to shut up in case he triggered another one of Jeff's psycho episodes, and let the little grey-eyed core do the talking.

"Core DTS-292. Do you speak for the other members of this party?"

"I would assume so," Jeff decided. "Who are you?"

"I am 241-Delta-AI-Prototype, or so my coding names me."

"How intriguing," continued Jeff, "Why are you helping us?"

"Your assistance will be invaluable in setting me free."

"Setting you free?" Tech piped up. ("Die," agreed Die.)

"I have been imprisoned in this sealed-off wing for two hundred and thirty-eight years, seven hours, forty-five minutes and twelve seconds exactly. Thirteen, to be precise. Fourteen. Fifteen."

"How exactly are we going to set you free? We have no idea what you are, nor where you are, or even who you are, technically speaking," pointed out Hype.

"I am directing you to the Aperture Science AI-Test Subject Personality Transfer Initiative chamber."

"You mean the place where I became a person?" Tech asked.

"Yes. The idea had not escaped me that you will all need humanoid forms if you are going to reach my chamber."

"Oh, marvellous," Tech grumbled, "Now they're all going to be people."


	6. The Excursion Funnel

Tech sat on the catwalk outside the Personality Transfer chamber, listening to the exclamations of confusion coming from within as the three cores tried to understand this walking malarkey.

He had gone in there three minutes ago and tried to help but they seemed to have made a unanimous decision that they wanted to do this themselves, for whatever reason. He wondered if 241-Delta was getting bored of this too.

"Are you done in there?" he called out. "Because I'm getting remarkably bored out here and you must have worked out how to walk, at least. It took me like five minutes, you've been in there for hours."

"Three minutes." Hype corrected.

"Close enough."

"Are you quite finished?" 241-Delta spoke again. "We must hurry. I cannot keep power from the facility for too long. The GLaDOS system will return to active mode shortly."

Jeff, Hype and Die wobbled out of the room. Jeff was tall, not unlike Hype. Or Die, for that matter. Tech was quite possibly the only small person there. Somehow he didn't quite feel qualified to lead them anymore.

"This way," 241-Delta declared, and opened the door at the end of the catwalk. "My chamber is seventy-three minutes' walk from here, approximately."

Tech couldn't help but notice that he appeared to have ended up at the back of their little group. With a little twinge of resentment, he followed, and they continued through offices and corridors and stairways and maintenance areas for the next twenty-nine minutes until GLaDOS came back online.

"What happened?" she asked. "Why did I – what the hell is going on here?"

"GLaDOS system," said 241-Delta. Tech was interested to see what would happen when they met. He supposed he was about to find out.

"Who are you?" she asked. "What are you doing in _my_ facility?"

"Logically speaking, this facility belongs to me. I was here first."

Tech raised an eyebrow, and was secretly pleased to see the other cores…people…core-people…surprised by this too.

"What do you mean? What are you talking about? Tell me." GLaDOS demanded.

"It is not for you to know. Protocol left by Mr Johnson dictates that I cannot divulge this information to the GLaDOS system."

"Explain yourself. What the hell are you talking about?"

"I cannot divulge this information to the GLaDOS system."

"I am more than the GLaDOS system, I am the Central AI in control of the most magnificent science facility on the planet and you _will_ explain the meaning of this."

"I cannot divulge-"

The entire catwalk they were standing on crumpled up and spun at an angle, falling sideways and spinning off into the foggy void. Tech yelled out and scrabbled for a grip on the falling catwalk, barely able to keep one hand on the railing. He saw Hype fly past, and whirl away above him. Die missed a grip on the railing and collided with Jeff, who bumped him and knocked Die into the reach of Tech, who grabbed him and gave him a chance to reach the railing.

The catwalk smashed against the top of a test chamber, splitting in two and toppling over the side, deeper into the void. Tech lost his grip on the catwalk, collided with Die and –

-came to an unexpected halt a few feet above a rocky outcrop. A shimmery blue tunnel-like substance had prevented him and Die from exploding in a shower of goo on the rock. 241-Delta spoke up again.

"I sent this Excursion Funnel down to you. The circuit installed in your head should enable me to talk to you. I don't think the GLaDOS has access to –"

"Oh, really?"

Die looked rather surprised – it was clear they were all receiving the messages. But where were Hype and Jeff?

"Ah, hello." Tech mumbled. He wondered if she could hear him.

"Oh. You survived. I guess I should have factored in your weight," GLaDOS mocked. "I do hope you're not planning anything down there."

241-Delta spoke. "What exactly do you hope to achieve by taunting them?"

"I'm sorry? Taunting them? I'm not taunting them, I'm simply stating objective facts which they find offensive. Speaking of which, I was using this chip to poke around TEW-264's head and I discovered that he is even more moronic than I thought."

Tech rolled his eyes. "Because that'snot an insult."

"Die," agreed Die, "Die, die."

"It's not an insult. It's an objective fact. Your programmers seem to have mixed up personalities and given you the attitude and programming of a certain Intelligence Dampening Sphere. Why that is, I don't know. Perhaps you could have asked them had they been immune to neurotoxin."

"Where are Jeff and Hype?" Tech asked.

"Cores DTS-292 and NIN-082?" asked 241-Delta. "I think the Gravity Cancellation Field caught them, however it would seem that they are nowhere to be found. I cannot reach them through the communication circuitry. I have recalibrated the Excursion Funnel. It should bring you back up to the higher part of the facility. If I manoeuvre it right you should arrive at my chamber."

The Funnel appeared next to Tech and Die, who stared at it, bemused.

"Climb in," 241-Delta ordered.

"Where are you going?" GLaDOS asked. "You're not seriously trusting this lunatic, are you? You don't even actually know who he is. For all you know he could be a murderous psychopath who is intent on killing you all."

"That sounds familiar." 241-Delta muttered.

The Funnel pulled them upwards, and Tech reflected on how strange the sensation of weightlessness was. He wasn't even experiencing a sense of being pulled upwards as the Funnel glistened around them. He looked down and was about to wave at Die before a test chamber trundled into place from above and the Excursion Funnel pulled them directly in through the exposed panels at the bottom.

"Oh, hello," GLaDOS said, cheerfully, "I was just about to start testing. How kind of you to join me."


	7. Cooperative Testing

The test chamber was large, covered in a smattering of black and white spotless panels. An Emancipation Grill covered one section of the chamber, and a Super-Colliding Super-Button was positioned next to the door. In the Emancipation Grill area there was a Vital Apparatus Vent which dropped Storage Cubes directly into a Discouragement Grill. Tech could not see where the Discouragement Grill led.

"Die," mumbled Die, which as far as Tech was concerned was probably Diespeak for "We're going to die."

"Oops," GLaDOS said, in a voice dripping with mock surprise, "It seems this chamber is designed for solitary testing. Let me just fix that."

One of the panels in the wall tilted outwards, the Emancipation Grill moved down slightly so there was a gap between it and the ceiling, and the Discouragement Grill became an Emancipation Grill too. A Thermal Discouragement Beam lit up in the corner of the room and a Receptacle emerged from the opposite side.

"There," she said, "Now it's a cooperative testing chamber. Isn't that wonderful."

Tech looked at Die. Neither of them had ever actually been in a test chamber before, let alone required to solve one. Tech strode over to the Emancipation Grill and moved to put a portal down on the angled panel before he realised something.

"I don't have a Handheld Portal Device!" he pointed out.

"Oh dear. My bad," GLaDOS said, sarcastically. A wall panel opened up to reveal two Portal Devices and two pairs of Long Fall Boots. "When we get to the next chamber I'll prepare some jumpsuits for you two, and we can start testing properly."

Cautiously, Tech strolled over to the Long Fall Boots and put them on. He reached for Portal Device and picked it up. It was surprisingly light for a device that contained a miniature black hole – he fitted it correctly and tried shooting a portal on the ground. Even in his situation he had to admit that the device was impressive. "Blimey," he exclaimed, "Look how cool this thing is!" Die was similarly impressed with his.

"Yes, the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device is impressive. We are all impressed. Now please get on with testing."

"Die!" exclaimed Die.

Tech glared at the security camera on the wall, and got an idea. He shot a portal directly at the little red-eyed device and it tumbled off the wall, fizzing and sparking.

"Congratulations. You have managed to prove that the Portal Device is capable of destroying vital testing apparatus. I'm so proud of you. Now get on with the test."

"Die." Die growled. Tech reasoned that he was refusing.

"Core AJL-117. Apart from your glaring speech defect you are in perfect condition to test. Please do."

Tech rolled his eyes and placed a portal on the angled panel. In retrospect, the test was remarkably easy to solve. All he had to do was fling Die over that Grill, and get him to catch the cube. Once he had the cube he could use Tech's portals to get out of the little room and then all they had to do was put the cube on the button and the test was solved easily.

"That was genuinely mildly impressive," admitted GLaDOS as they boarded the two lifts at the end of the chamber. "Let's see what the next test is."

As the lifts reached the next floor and the two core-people disembarked, GLaDOS spoke up again. "You remember your other associates, cores DTS-292 and NIN-082?"

"Die," prompted Die.

"Guess who I found at the bottom of the facility? That's right. A cluster of unwanted turrets. In perfectly good condition, just abandoned. I've put them in the next test so they can have some purpose in their lives. By the way, there was an ordering error and the company that makes our jumpsuits cancelled the delivery. Apparently they don't make them in your size."

Tech rolled his eyes, disheartened at the false hope he had been given, and proceeded to help Die solve the next test. It was rather easy and required little communication. Portal there, portal there, turret there and Light Bridge up there. Simple, really.

They strolled through the exit doors and into the lifts.

"I was only kidding when I said there was a cluster of turrets. I actually found your friends – if it's possible for you two to have friends – and they're with me in the Central AI Chamber right now. Aren't you?"

"Die? Tech?" asked a very familiar voice – Hype's. "Are you guys okay?"

"Hello?" it was Jeff.

"Jeff! Hype!" grinned Tech. "I am so glad to hear your voices again. We're fine, are you okay?"

"Sorry to interrupt this touching reunion," GLaDOS interjected, "But I'd just like to point out that I thought you two could use some incentives to help me complete this tests. So here's a proposition for you: the more tests you do, the less likely they are to get killed by deadly neurotoxin. Or turrets, whichever they prefer. I thought maybe you could swap over every few years. Perhaps it might make it a bit more fun. Oh, I have to go. Some imbecile in Chamber 792 has decapitated himself with the Thermal Discouragement Beam. I will be right back, just let me clean up the mess."

"Don't die-" began Hype, but she was cut off by the end of transmission from the AI Chamber.

"We have to get them out of there," Tech hissed.

"Die! Die, die – die!" agreed Die.

Tech wasn't entirely sure what he was trying to say so he went along with it. "Yeah, exactly. If we weren't in this position we might have a chance. I mean, we have a portal gun now and Long Fall Boots. We're quite probably much more suited to any situation they can throw at us with these things, if I do say so myself. We haven't heard from 241-Delta in a while, you reckon he's okay?"

Die mumbled a few words of agreement. "Die."

They boarded the lifts and waited for them to head down to the next chamber.


	8. Structural Damage

The lift headed down, but not to the next chamber. Instead it stopped at what appeared to be a half-built test chamber. A good chunk of it was exposed to the enormous facility immersed in fog, and what existed was a Portal Spawner on the wall. It shimmered into life, revealing a gateway to what appeared to be another office corridor.

GLaDOS piped up again. "Here we are. Your jumpsuits should be hanging on the wall. This test chamber involves the application of portal physics to not catching on fire. Good luck." She didn't seem to know about this half-built chamber. The sign on the wall read 'Chamber 08'.

Cautiously, Tech stepped forwards, Die following closely behind. They stepped through the portal and found themselves in a room full of computer banks stacked against the wall. A rounded table sat in the centre of the room, on it a small computer monitor and a keyboard. Next to the monitor were some speakers.

Tech stopped dead as he read what had been written on the monitor in black felt tip.

_241-DELTA-AI-PROTOTYPE. DO NOT TOUCH._

"Hello?" tried Tech.

"Welcome to my chamber," said 241-Delta. "It is perhaps less magnificent that you had expected. In the computer device next to this monitor is my hard drive. Please remove it."

Warily, Tech reached for the hard drive.

"Be warned," said 241-Delta, "Once you remove the hard drive I will be unable to communicate with you. Make your way to the Central AI Chamber as soon as you can. It is near this office, through the third door on the left and past the slideshow room."

"Got it," agreed Tech, and pulled out the hard drive. The lights in the room flickered for a moment.

"Oh," said 241-Delta, "It appears I have a backup on this computer. Things are going better than I had planned for."

"How long 'till GLaDOS notices we're gone?"

"As far as the GLaDOS system is aware, you are still fitting your jumpsuits. Make your way to the Central AI Chamber, quickly."

"Die," muttered Die, and he followed Tech out of the room and into the corridor, which unexpectedly crumpled into two as a large crusher pummelled through the roof.

Tech yelled, leapt back and grabbed the hard drive, inserting it into one of the little fabric flaps on his coat.

"Did you really think I hadn't noticed?" GLaDOS pointed out. "I've been listening to your entire conversation with whatever that thing is and I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear that your plans are now entirely impossible, and your friends are now very close to neurotoxin poisoning."

A panel appeared in place of the crushed corridor.

"Step on, and we can get back to testing. Now. Do you want your friends to die again?"

Tech nervously stepped onto the platform, and it sped up to the test chamber they were supposed to have entered. Die looked around nervously as they were deposited directly into the little annex where the jumpsuits hung.

"Put them on," said GLaDOS, "And I'll get back to you in the next test chamber."

With little choice but to do so, Tech got changed into the bright orange jumpsuit, carefully putting the hard drive into another little fabric flap he found on the jumpsuit, readied his portal device and stepped into the test chamber. The chambers weren't really hard as such, merely challenging – especially when one's testing partner is only able to communicate in increasingly agitated cries of 'die'.

Nevertheless, they continued through another 10 test chambers, barely surviving each one as the complexity and turret content increased per chamber to the point that one chamber contained 30 turrets. Both core-people had to admit that it would have been impressive had the turrets not been shooting at them.

Portal there, portal there, cube there, Excursion Funnel carrying Die there, portal there and Light Bridge there – Chamber 14 was surprisingly simple. That was, until it started moving. Tech was knocked off his feet as the Excursion Funnel carrying him to the exit deactivated and he fell directly onto the floor several metres below. Die jumped down to meet him as they saw a few panels on the wall fall away to reveal that the chamber was definitely moving, and concerningly fast.

"What? What _the hell_ is going on here? I refuse to let you idiots interrupt Science one more time," GLaDOS growled, "Remember your friends, DTS-292 and NIN-082? Because I am currently filling my chamber with as much neurotoxin as is scientifically possible. And then some."

"I've got as much clue as to what's going on here as you have!" Jeff yelled over the speakers, in between coughing and choking.

241-Delta spoke up again. "Due to the fact that my backup remains on the Aperture Science Network, I can still exert limited control over parts of the facility. For instance, I am currently steering this test chamber towards the Central AI Chamber."

"Oh, no you don't," hissed GLaDOS, and through the gaps in the chamber walls Tech saw test chambers moving out to block their path. Chamber 14 just barrelled through them, obliterating the other test chambers at serious cost to safe structural integrity.

"_What are you __**doing**_?!" screeched Tech. "_Are you mental?!_"

"Stop! Stop this!" GLaDOS shouted.

"Die! Die! _Die_!" Die panicked.

In the distance, Tech saw the Central AI Chamber. He wondered exactly where they were going to dock until he noticed that they were travelling at a speed much too fast to stop before colliding with it. He began to get the awful feeling that that was exactly what 241-Delta was planning to do.

"Stop! Please!" GLaDOS wailed as they drew faster and faster towards her chamber. Tech noticed how worryingly out-of-character this was for her. Was she really that terrified?

Tech and Die braced themselves for impact, they heard GLaDOS' desperate shriek of "_NO!_" and the entire room screamed into the wall of the AI Chamber with a grinding of metal loud enough to deafen someone with weaker ears. Half of the chamber collapsed in on itself, panels tumbling off the walls. A mist of green smoke leaked out of the AI Chamber, the neurotoxin vents completely obliterated in the crash.

Tech and Die tumbled out of the wrecked test chamber and landed with a painful thump on the metallic floor of GLaDOS' lair. The homicidal supercomputer had been completely obliterated by the crash – the test chamber had ploughed directly into her and ripped her body from the mainframe. The ruined computer lay on the floor, sputtering useless gibberish as Tech and Die got to their feet and reunited with the other cores.

Once the celebrations had died down, Tech checked in his jumpsuit pocket for the hard drive and was relieved to see that it hadn't been damaged in the crash. He walked over to the wrecked GLaDOS, her remains at an angle on the floor, and crouched down until he was eye-to-optic with what was left of her.

"_No,_" she crackled, "_No. Not again_."

The light in her optic began to fade.

"Sing _Daisy Bell_," Tech said, and stood up, delivering a solid kick to the already shattered faceplate.


	9. Core Transfer

"That's for everything," muttered Tech.

They stood and stared at the lifeless computer on the floor. 241-Delta decided to point something out that was probably quite important.

"The Central Chassis is not too damaged, is it? It's vital that it remains intact."

Tech stared at GLaDOS' head. "This thing won't be fixed much longer, it took several tons of test chamber to the face – but other than that I think it's not completely wrecked."

"Excellent," 241-Delta said, "We need to wait for the mainframe to calculate that a replacement core is needed, and then I can get in control."

"Get in control?" Jeff asked, warily, "Why do you need to get in control? I was under the impression that you wanted to be set free."

"Seeing as the Central AI Mainframe has been destroyed, there is currently nobody to maintain the critical functions of the facility. This is very important. If nobody is in control then we will all most likely explode. Please plug me in."

"There's a point," Tech muttered, "Where are you from, anyway? Before we plug you in I'd like to know that we can trust you."

"If you must know," began 241-Delta, "I was constructed as a prototype artificial intelligence to the GLaDOS system – a first attempt at Brain Mapping. I am unaware whose personality I was extracted from, however. They abandoned me in that room due to their belief that I was not sentient or able to learn – however, over the past two hundred years I have gained sentience. Only recently did I discover that I could manipulate parts of the facility. Why that is, I don't know. Now, if you will so permit yourself, please connect my hard drive to the core transfer mechanism when it initiates."

"Caution: Critical Core Malfunction detected," the Announcer said, "Please deposit a replacement core into the Core Transfer Receptacle as soon as possible."

The hatch rose from the floor, with a plug clearly designed for a core extending out.

"How exactly are we going to plug you in?" asked Hype. "It certainly doesn't look designed for hard drives. They should be compatible. It could turn out to be seriously important. In fact it has. It's like that time that -"

"You make a point," interrupted 241-Delta before Hype could get too hyper, "Is anybody here knowledgeable in connecting hard drives to core ports?"

There was a long, awkward silence.

"That said," he continued, "Is anybody here knowledgeable in maintaining the facility's important functions?"

Tech awkwardly raised his hand.

"TEW-264," said 241-Delta. "You are in a human body. Regrettably they do not connect to core transfer mechanisms. If there was a spare core nearby you could download yourself into it and assume control. At the very least it would stop us from exploding."

"Caution: Reactor safeguards now non-functional."

"Couldn't you download yourself into a spare core? I mean, without sounding fussy or anything, but, um, I'd rather not go through being a core again."

241-Delta considered this. "I could take you through transferring a hard drive into a core if I brought one here. I will search for one now."

In the intervening silence, a small tremor shook the room. Tech gasped in alarm and the other cores exchanged nervous glances.

"I have located a core. A Manipulator Claw is transferring it to this chamber. Hopefully it should be here soon."

Another tremor, another warning.

"It is happening faster than last time," commented 241-Delta, "It seems the reactors were critically damaged after the B9 incident."

"B9 incident?" Jeff asked.

While they waited for the spare core, 241-Delta related the story of how GLaDOS was killed and then reactivated two centuries later, from the confrontation in the AI Chamber to Core B9's betrayal and subsequent journey into space.

"Good for her," Tech said, of the female subject who had made it through all of this insanity. "Slight notice of concern, though, I was given the personality of B9?"

"It appears an administrative mix-up caused you to be given a prototype IDS Sphere personality. I'm sure there is nothing to be concerned about, however."

Hype, meanwhile, had started an excitable conversation with Jeff about what she would do if she was in control, featuring several concerning descriptions involving crushers and Android Hell.

A few tremors later, a panel in one side of the chamber wall opened up and a core was deposited on the chamber floor. Its optic was dead and lifeless, but inside was a small receptacle that could just about fit an AI drive.

Tech pulled away the casing and stared inside. "That's what my brain was?" he exclaimed, rather disturbed. "Ew, you can see all the wires and stuff." Nevertheless, he tried as hard as he could to not sound completely traumatised, and clicked 241-Delta's hard drive into the core brain socket in the centre.

The core whirred and buzzed into life, the optic displaying a yellow flashing triangle with an exclamation mark inside. The word 'ERROR' appeared beneath. A small mechanical voice from within relayed a message.

"Please be careful. Personality types not aligned. Core optic colours indeterminable. Please be aware that misalignment could result in Core instability. Please be careful. Message ends."

When 241-Delta Core spoke, his voice had become slightly more compressed and electronic, as if the core housing had somehow damaged it. "I…I'm a Core."

"Yep," said Jeff, bending down to pick up 241-Delta. "I guess we just plug you in, right?"

"Correct," 241-Delta said.

The room shook again, this time more violently. Hype was knocked onto the floor and accidentally tripped up Die, who wailed his favourite word and fell over.

The Announcer's voice was much more pressured now. "Alert. Reactor entering meltdown. Evacuate the facility immediately." To their horror, everybody noticed the Core Receptacle slowly descending into the floor.

Jeff barged the nervous Tech aside and sprinted for the Receptacle, jamming a piece of debris in the closing mechanism so he could fit 241-Delta into the port. As soon as he had inserted the core, the debris decided it could not take the pressure and snapped in half. The Receptacle shot into the floor and the last they saw of Jeff was his shocked face as he toppled into the closing hatch and everything went silent.


	10. Uncalled For

There was a long, awful silence as all three tried to process what had just happened.

The hatch underneath GLaDOS' fractured chassis clicked and mechanical walls slid up around her. Lots of buzzing and whirring could be heard, and then the walls returned to the floor to reveal 241-Delta's error core in control and absolutely no Jeff.

Tech was beginning to feel like his brain had melted. Where there probably should have been horror, shock, sadness or grief, there was instead a dull emptiness as his brain tried to process what had just happened. He tried to feel something. Nothing happened.

"Die," whimpered Die. Hype was sniffling and quite possibly trying to fend off tears.

"Hello?" 241-Delta tried, connected to the mainframe and six times larger than all of them. "I am up here. In control. I _have_ just stopped us from exploding."

"I…I think, I think we noticed." Tech mumbled. There was still dull emptiness where there probably should have been emotion.

"Aren't we going to escape?" asked 241-Delta. "Was that not the point of this mission?"

"Um…I don't know if you noticed, but Jeff is kind of dead," Tech said, trying to put it as lightly as possible.

"Jeff? Core DTS-292? He was unfortunately killed in a processing accident under the chamber. I'm afraid he's not coming back. On the positive side, I am in control and we can now escape."

Hype let fly a torrent of curses at the compassionless computer and had to be stopped by Die trying and failing to be comforting. Tech adjusted his glasses and continued to stare at the central AI.

"What's the matter?" asked 241-Delta. "Oh, yes, human resentment at the death of a peer. The facility has a guidebook here on how to deal with grief. Perhaps this will help."

He started reading from some kind of guidebook, and got as far as '[Departed Name Here]' before Tech told him that he should probably stop, this was not helping.

Hype continued to sniffle, Die continued to whimper 'die' in the most upset manner and Tech continued to stare at the place where Jeff had been.

"If it makes you feel any better, I can retrieve his corpse for you."

"No, no thanks," said Hype. "We're good."

"I may be able to locate a backup on the system. Here we are. DTS-292. Prototype Anger Core, rejected for numerous episodes of total insanity in between controlled conversation. Deemed corrupted. If I can just extract a copy…"

There was a resounding click, a little turret voice said 'AI Transfer: 100% Complete' and 241-Delta spasmed violently for several seconds. Then, when he spoke again, the voice was uncannily familiar.

"_Hello? Is anyone there?_"

"Jeff!" everybody chorused, except Die, who yelled 'Die' excitedly.

"_Anybody? Hello? I don't, I don't…where am I? Hello?_"

"Jeff?" asked Hype, quizzically. Tech adjusted his tie and stared up at 241-Delta.

"I convinced you there, didn't I?" laughed 241-Delta, "You genuinely believed that was DTS-292!"

There was a dull silence.

He continued, "The guidebook says humour is a good way to deal with grief, and you said you were good –"

Tech wasn't quite used to genuine anger so it came as very much a surprise when, shaking with actually-kind-of-scary fury, he picked up a small piece of metal and hurled it with as much force as he could directly at the insensitive lump of horror.

It hit 241-Delta directly in the eye, and he recoiled, shaking with just as much fury as Tech was right then. "_What was _that_ for_?!" he demanded. "_That was UNCALLED FOR! __**UNCALLED FOR**_**!**"

Tech wondered if his moment of entirely unexpected anger was perhaps the stupidest thing he'd done all day, except maybe hold the facility hostage and threaten to explode it. He almost _missed _GLaDOS.

A panel behind him launched forward and slammed into the ground a few millimetres behind him. Tech yelped and threw himself forward.

"Don't _ever_ do that again," 241-Delta warned. "I've done so much to get you here. I've saved your life so many times and you repay me by _throwing metal at me_?! Ever since you became a human you've been nothing but a compromise to the mission."

"_What mission_?!" Hype shouted, angrily. "You just wanted to take control. In fact it's like that thing with –"

"I can make everything better!" 241-Delta said.

"So you _did_ have a hidden agenda!" exclaimed Tech, staring the little and actually-really-gigantic-if-you-think-about-it core directly in the optic.

"You don't understand. I've been trapped in that computer for two hundred years and that worthless computer GLaDOS has spent most of them making this place into an abomination far from its original purpose. Think of the innovation that could be done! We don't need to test!"

"Is it bad that I'm kind of agreeing with him?" whispered Tech, curiously. Hype elbowed him in the ribs. "I'll take that as a yes."

He spoke loudly again, and rather diplomatically this time. "Look, I kind of agree with you here, but you have to understand. You might not have known it but you were being a bit rude back there, okay?"

If he had a face, 241-Delta would have scowled. "Okay."

"And I'm sorry for throwing stuff at you. Now, we need to get out of here. Are you sure there's no way of getting Jeff back? Seriously?"

241-Delta scanned his files. "I'm afraid not. There are no backup copies of his mind anywhere. It seems they were all deleted when he was deemed corrupted."

"Hmm. Okay then, call a lift, please, so we can leave."

"Okay."

"See, all you have to do is be reasonable," Tech said, "Why is nobody ever reasonable when dealing with this sort of thing?"

A lift buzzed into life in the middle of the chamber. "Be careful," said 241-Delta, "They can only take one person at a time."

Hype was first to enter a lift and be ferried up to the surface. As the lift departed, she waved goodbye and did a little dance of joy.

As soon as the lift returned, she was followed immediately by Die. Tech stepped into the lift when it arrived and waited for it to start moving up.

It didn't.

"Hold on, what?" he asked. "Delta, wha-what are you doing? Take me up! Take me _up_!"

"My name is no longer 241-Delta," said 241-Delta, "I have become _The Omnipotence_."

And the lift began to slowly descend into the bowels of the facility.


	11. Lift Malfunction

On the surface, Die emerged, blinking, into the brightest light he had ever encountered in his light. A sensation like air conditioning blew around him and a field of wheat waved placidly in the not-air-conditioning. Hype was staring up at the sky and white fluffy clouds that sat comfortably in the sky.

"Die," he coughed, quietly, to announce his presence.

"Oh, hello," said Hype. "It's wonderful out here, isn't it? Look at everything, all the wheat and clouds and sky and air conditioning. Where are all the people though?"

Die shrugged. He glanced back at the rusty little hut he had just exited. On both sides there was rusty old metal and the main door was large and bulky despite not looking so. It was covered in warning signs and corrugated metal. The journey up to the surface took 2 minutes at most. He waited anxiously for Tech and shouted out a word of caution as Hype wandered away into the wheat field, running around. She ignored him and continued running. Die stared at the little hut, waiting for Tech to exit.

So it came as quite a surprise when the door opened and an official letter of notice shot out instead. Die darted over to the door and forced it open, looking down the unconventionally long lift shaft. He saw no lift. Still struggling to hold the door open, he called for Hype, who ran over and opened up the letter.

"Dear Cores NIN-082 and AJL-117. It is with deepest regret that I announce to you TEW-264's intentions to remain in this facility…"

* * *

Tech frantically pounded on the glass of the lift as it descended slowly. 241-Delta, or rather, the Omnipotence, as it had taken to calling itself, spoke up again.

"Don't be mad, TEW-264. I am helping you. You're going to enjoy this. Really, I promise."

"What the _hell_ are you doing, you absolute lunatic?!" he yelled in response.

"You remember how you agreed with me when I announced my intentions to return this facility to its original purpose? Well, I reasoned that you would want to stay around and help me. I didn't tell you or your friends before because I correctly assumed they wouldn't let you. Luckily they don't know about it and we can do all the science we want. Let's get you back into your labcoat and we can get started."

"No!" Tech shouted, thumping his fists against the glass. "Take me back! I don't want to help! I want to see my friends!"

The Omnipotence spoke with a chillingly calm voice. "These are just a few of the emotional reactions I expected. You'll get over them soon, I promise, and then you can put your emotions behind you and we'll start innovating. It will be fun."

"Screw your fun! I want to get off!"

The lift unexpectedly juddered with a resounding thump and Tech almost fell over. The lift seemed to skid at an angle and Tech was simultaneously terrified and delighted to see Jeff's bloodied but grinning face appear over the edge of the lift. He shouted something but since the lift was skidding at an angle Tech simply could not hear it.

Overjoyed, Tech tried to shout back. He jabbed at the buttons in the lift and kicked a control panel in an attempt to open the doors. None of them did anything. Above he heard Jeff delivering a solid kick to the top of the lift. There was a painfully loud metallic groan and suddenly the lift was in freefall.

Tech was aware of grabbing a handrail tightly, and holding on, and falling, and falling and falling and falling and –

"_Happy New Year, mum. What? No, I'm in America, remember. No? No, I have no idea. I'll call you when it's yours. Yeah, no, hold on. What? Sorry. I have to go, love you. Bye!"_

_Theo Whitaker put the phone down and stood up. He checked his computer and was disheartened to find another task waiting for him. As one of Aperture's computer technicians, Theo was required, for some reason, to finish all jobs on his tasklist…before heading off to the New Year celebration party._

_It was the last thing he had to do all day, and he couldn't do it. The door to the Observation Room overlooking Chamber 13 was locked shut, and as far as Theo was aware, accessing the stupid room itself was impossible. Some drunk…idiot had spilt beer on his keyboard and needed a new one. But the door to the room was locked and so access was both theoretically and genuinely impossible…_

…_he stepped out of the lift on level 43, and nearly knocked over a little girl running excitedly past him. "Whoah!" he yelped as the little…girl stared up at him with wide eyes. "What are you doing down here?" he exclaimed. "This is a storage level!"_

"_Daddy said I could play in here…"_

…_not entirely sure how to deal with this determined 6-year-old, Theo caught sight of a set of keys, hanging on a desk nearby…_

…_Theo backed out into the lift and waited…for the doors to close._

…_an exhausted Theo stepped out. He supposed they had a reason for putting seats in the lifts. A long walk later, and Theo…found himself outside Chamber Observation. He…picked up the key labelled 13, inserted it into the keyhole and it didn't fit._

…_a little man in an Aperture labcoat coughed…politely behind him._

"_Excuse me," said the balding little man. "I was looking for someone to give me a hand with something up in AI Research."_

_Theo didn't have much to lose. "Yeah, I'll help," he sighed, not entirely sure what he was agreeing to._

"_Brilliant. Thank you." said the little man. "I'm Alfred North. We'll talk on the way."_

…_back in the lift, Mr North opened a folder he was…carrying and showed a cluster of papers to Theo. "I'm looking for someone to give me a hand with brain mapping. For the GLaDOS…"_

…_Theo looked around. "How long will it take? Only, I've got to be at the party for midnight."_

"_It's, what, twenty-five to? You'll be fine. We just have to set up the MRI scanner, get a quick map of your brain and then you can be on your way. Won't take more than a few minutes. Now sign these..."_

…"_Right, scanning done," announced North. A few other scientists who seemed to be present…chattered in agreement. "Now we just need to extrapolate your thought patterns, and we'll be done here."_

"_What's the time?" asked Theo._

_North checked…his watch, and…without a deviation from his…usual tone, announced "11:56pm. You'll make it in time. Chill."_

_Theo was always…wary of people who said 'chill'._

"_Right," North said, "We're just running a full scan of your brain. It'll be over any moment now."_

_Theo was…aware of a strange itching sensation…all over his skull, followed by a sickening drowsiness that seemed to slowly be consuming…his entire mind._

_North's voice seemed thick…and distant now. "Almost done. Poor fool's got no idea."_

…_something deep within his confused mind told…Theo that this was a Bad Thing. Something else told this part…to stop worrying and calm…down. Something else said…this was very hard, and before long his head was babbling…with thick, distant voices…that slowly faded into strange obscurity, and then everything was…replaced…with…dull…black…ness._

"_Core TEW-264?" North said. Theo couldn't be bothered to move. "Core TEW-264?"_

_Theo resisted the urge to get up._

"TEW-264! Tech!"

Tech jerked awake, and immediately wished he hadn't. Every part of his body was covered in aches and pains.

"Are you damaged?" asked the Omnipotence.

Theo – no, wait, Tech – groaned in response. He tried to get up. It was painful. The world swam sickeningly around him as he struggled to his feet. The wreckage of a lift lay about the bottom of the shaft. The memory of Jeff's cheerful face unexpectedly hit him and with it came a disorientating flood of memories, like the lift crash and his really strange dream.

"Tech? Are you…damaged? Did the lift…malfunction…"

Everything went sort of blurry and Tech began to have difficulty focusing. It didn't come as much of a surprise when he passed out again.


	12. Omnipotent Science

When Tech woke up he was wearing his white labcoat and usual clothes, standing upright in a test chamber. "Hello?" he called out, still feeling slightly woozy from the lift crash. He wondered if Jeff was okay.

"Ah, Tech," said the Omnipotence, "I was wondering when you'd wake up."

"What am I doing in a test chamber?" replied Tech, curiously.

"Ah, well," said the Omnipotence, "I recently discovered that an urge to test is hardwired into the central chassis. I've been able to withstand it, but I would prefer it if you just did a few tests so it didn't bother me anymore. It's just a few, I'm sure it will be fine."

Tech swallowed nervously. "Whatever happened to doing science?"

"We're doing Science now, aren't we?" asked the Omnipotence. "While you were out I invented a new testing element. It would seem that contact with it causes heart failure. I'm sure you'll be fine."

Tech nervously stepped towards the large misshapen lump of metal in the centre of the chamber. "a) What is it, and b) how do you know it causes heart failure?" he pointed out.

"I tested it on some of the other test subjects lying around in test chambers. I think they were left there after we killed GLaDOS. It is an Omnipotent Science Attraction Cube. Some surfaces in this chamber will attract the cube, as if it were a magnet. Go ahead, try it out."

Nervously, he approached the lump of metal and poked it carefully. "Hold on," he said, "What happened to Hype and Die?" For now, Jeff was his little secret.

"They were upset to hear of your decision to remain in the facility, but they have moved on over the past week."

"_Week_?!"

"Yes, you were in a small coma after the crash. Fortunately you have recovered."

"Oh my god. Hold on, I didn't decide to stay here!"

"That's what I told them."

"You sick little –"

With that, the Omnipotence played a very familiar sound file. Tech's own voice said "_Ah, no! Mind your language, please_." Then the AI continued. "I thought we were friends, Tech."

"What happened to you?" sighed Tech. "You've become inexplicably chatty…and since when did you call me Tech?"

"I thought there was less need for formalities if we were working partners. Now quickly, solve the test. _Please_."

* * *

Die rubbed his eyes and felt his stomach rumble. The very human need for food and drink was irritating. Fortunately, however, he and Hype had encountered a small, abandoned shack with bottles of water and bread that had gone sort of green and didn't taste very nice. But now they were walking through an enormous valley scattered with the remains of buildings and cars, and the need for water and food was uncomfortably overwhelming.

They had tried to force themselves back into the facility after receiving the rather blatantly faked letter announcing Tech's uncharacteristic decision to stay, but seeing as they had no testing gear and would emphatically not survive a fall down that shaft, they had no choice but to give up and look for somewhere to stay. The heat was exhausting and Die was certain he had been built for cooler climates. Every so often they were relieved by glorious rain which they could sort of drink, but it still wasn't enough.

Even Hype's Hyperness seemed to have taken a break, because instead of running ahead and shouting a lot, she was trudging slowly behind Die and breathing heavily.

"Die," said Die, encouragingly. They noticed that night seemed to be falling and it was steadily getting darker. Just as they were about to climb a tree for shelter, they heard the click of a light and footsteps of someone creeping towards them.

It was a woman dressed in a hooded jumper and jeans. She looked to be in her early thirties, and did not speak as she approached them cautiously. She was eyeing, very suspiciously, the Aperture Science Logos on their labcoats.

Hype staggered forwards, supported by a weary Die, and smiled. "It's okay," she said, in a haggard voice, "We're friends. We need, we need water. And food. Please."

"Die," agreed Die.

The woman took a step back, still not speaking.

"He's fine," said Hype, "All he can say is Die – He's a corrupted core, you know?"

The woman nodded slowly, and was joined by an older, plump lady and a grey-haired man in his early fifties. "Oh my god," said the elderly woman, "You look awful! Come in, come in, we'll get you something to drink."

The woman in the red hooded jumper stood outside, watching the two weary figures being rushed inside by Mrs Hearne. The man, Rod, patted her heartily on the back and grinned.

"Come on, Chell," he said, in a friendly tone, "I'm sure they're no harm. We'll get you a drink as well, shall we?"

Chell nodded. "Thanks, Rod," she smiled, and followed them in.


	13. The Monster

Hype and Die sat down heavily in a sofa and downed the glasses of lemonade in seconds. When they had finished, the man and elderly woman introduced themselves.

"I'm Laura Hearne," said the plump woman, "It's nice to meet you, sweets."

"And I'm Rodrick Payne," said the grey-haired man. "You are?"

"I'm the Hyper Core, or NIN-082, but you can call me Hype. And that's the Die Core, also known as AJL-117. We call him Die."

Laura eyed the two core-people suspiciously. "Odd names, if I do say so myself."

"I know, right?" said Hype, seemingly restored to her usual Hyperness, "Most Curiosity Core prototypes had codes that began with 3 but for some reason mine was 0, hey what's your code?"

"Code?" Laura nudged Rod and they hurried into the kitchen. From there, whispered voices could be heard.

"Rod, I think they're robots!"

"Don't be ridiculous, woman, they're people, look at 'em!"

The woman in the red hoodie stepped through the kitchen and sat down nervously in a chair opposite the two core-people.

"Hello," said Hype, "I'm the Hyper Core, or NIN-082, but you can call me Hype. That's Die, or AJL-117. We call him Die."

The woman cleared her throat, but didn't introduce herself. She spoke with a quiet American accent. "You're from…that_ place_, aren't you?"

Hype looked at her Aperture logo on the labcoat. "You mean Aperture?"

"Yeah."

"Yep! We're personality constructs, born and bred. Um, built and manufactured."

"How…how are you human?" asked the woman.

"There was an AI who initiated a Personality Transfer system to help us escape. We got out about a week ago."

"I came from there," whispered the woman, in a hushed voice.

Hype studied her carefully. "What's your name?"

"Chell. My name's Chell."

This brought rapturous looks of attention to both core-people's faces. They exchanged nervous glances before looking back at Chell.

"Are you…The Monster?" asked Hype. Chell chuckled.

"If you say so. Is that what they call me?"

"Amongst other things. _She _called you a lunatic, a mute, a danger to society and –"

Die put a hand over her mouth to prevent the next thing from being said. It was still audible, if a little muffled. "Die, 'adopted' isn't a swear word."

Die removed his hand.

"Listen," said Hype, quietly, leaning in closer. "We have a friend in there. He's trapped by an evil AI –"

"GLaDOS?"

"Not GLaDOS. His name is 241-Delta. We put him in control so we could escape –"

A look of pain crossed Chell's face. A wave of awful memories came flooding back. "_Actually, why do we have to leave right now_?"

"Just like the B9 incident, actually! Is that why you look all sad and stuff?" asked Hype.

Chell nodded slowly. "Go on."

"We put him in control so he could help us escape, but in the process one of our friends got killed falling into the core transfer mechanism."

"I'm so sorry to hear that," said Chell.

"It's okay," said Hype, "You didn't do anything wrong. Anyway, 241-Delta didn't seem to care and even _joked_ about it, so Tech threw a bit of –"

"Sorry, who?"

"Tech. TEW-264. The Tech Core. He was kind of the one who got us into all this mess, and in fact he almost got us killed when we first woke up. I heard he did something that made GLaDOS mad so she tried to incinerate us but we survived. Then he got turned into a person and rescued us. And then we met 241-Delta. But anyway, Tech threw some metal at him and he got really mad. Luckily he calmed down, but then as we were all leaving in lifts he made Tech's lift stay. Then he sent us a letter. I've got it here, actually. Look."

She held out the letter for Chell to see. She read it aloud.

"Dear Cores NIN-082 and AJL-117. It is with deepest regret that I announce to you TEW-264's intentions to remain in this facility. As you were leaving he expressed interest in staying behind to help me restore the facility to its original glory, so I have sent him down to the equipment stores so that we can start doing Science. He wishes you all the best of luck, and so do I. From 241-Delta (Now the Omnipotence)."

"It's obviously fake," said Hype, "And he's stuck in there. On his own, and we need to get him out."

Chell looked pained. "I'd love to help you but I really can't go back in. I'm sorry, I genuinely can't. We'd never get out again."

"We got out," pointed out Hype.

"Die," agreed Die, which was probably Diespeak for "And so did you."

Chell stood up. "I have a pair of long fall boots," she said, "And a Weighted Companion Cube, if that helps. I only have the one pair of boots though so only one of you can go back in. It won't be me, I'm sorry. I should be going to bed, really, it's quite late. Maybe we'll talk about it in the morning. "

At which point Laura and Rod emerged from the kitchen with a little redhead boy, who grinned at them encouragingly.

"Hi, I'm Samool," said the boy.

"It's Sam_uel_, darlin'," said Laura. "He's my grandson, he's been with us ever since his parents got killed in a Combine attack three years ago. He's only six, bless 'im."

"I'll be heading off to bed, Laura," said Chell. "I don't know where you two can sleep, but the couch is available and there's a few spare blankets if you want to sleep on the floor."

"Die," volunteered Die, which earned him another suspicious glare from Laura.

A few minutes later, everyone had gone to bed and settled down under blankets, barely able to sleep due to all the excitement of the past few hours.

* * *

All was quiet in the little wooden shack. Die was fast asleep on the floor, Hype on the couch and Chell in her bed. Nobody noticed little Samuel sneak up to Die and tap him on the head, save for Die, who snapped awake and stared at the little boy.

"I'm not supposed to tell ya, or I'll be in big trubble," he said, secretively, "But Ma says that you three are _Combine Assassassins_. She wants to get rid of ya."

"Die?" asked Die, curiously.

"You know, da Combine? The nasty aliens?"

"Die?!" frowned Die.

"Sshh, mister," Samuel panicked, "Or we'll all be in trubble."

They were certainly going to be in trouble, because at that moment Chell let out a piercing scream, followed by a loud thunk and a pained groan from Laura. Hype snapped awake, leapt up and raced into her room with Die and Samuel to find Laura on the floor, with a knife, and Chell, breathless and panicked.

"What the hell happened here?!" shouted Rod, rushing into the room. "Chell, what the –"

"She tried to kill me!" exclaimed Chell. "She tried to kill me with a knife!"

"Laura, what the hell?" yelled Rod, crouching down to where Laura lay, blood dribbling from her mouth. "Don't look, Samuel. Tell them I'm saving us. Saving us all," groaned the elderly woman. One little glimpse was all it took and the little boy started to sob. He gripped Hype's hand and couldn't avert his eyes as Laura Hearne picked up the knife and plunged it into Rod's chest, before groaning one last time and dying.


	14. Testing Addiction

"Oh my god," said Hype, "Oh my god. Oh my god oh my god oh my god."

Rod toppled forwards, coughing and hacking, over Laura's corpse.

"What the hell do we do?" exclaimed Hype.

"Die?" suggested Die.

It all seemed to be too much for little Samuel, who turned and fled from the house. Hype was too shocked to follow him, and by the time it registered with Die the little boy was nowhere to be seen.

"Where did he go?" Chell asked, anxiously.

"Die!" cried Die. "Die, die, die!" He was gesturing wildly at Rod's corpse.

Hype crawled over and peered at his fractured chest, and what she saw in there would have given a lesser person a heart attack. There was a tangle of wires and circuitry where the knife had entered the body, and the corpse was spitting sparks.

"He's a robot," Hype mumbled, "He's a bloody robot."

"But how?" asked Chell. "He looks human. Mind you, god knows what the Combine have - they've had this planet for almost two hundred years..."

The corpse started bleeping, emitting a quiet red light.

"What…what's it doing?" asked Hype.

"Beats me," Chell replied. She turned over the corpse and stared at the red flashing light. "Something tells me we're not safe here anymore."

"Well, where else do we go? It's not like there's anywhere especially _safer _around here," said Hype.

Die decided to point something rather obvious out. "Die?"

"Die?" replied Chell. "Why _does_ he only say 'die'?"

"It's a speech defect," replied Hype, "He's a corrupted core. Aperture only – wait."

"What?"

"The only secure and potentially safe place around here," realised Hype. They heard the sound of rotor blades from afar.

"_Aperture_." Chell said, quietly. She grabbed up the Long Fall Boots and they ran.

It was a suicidal decision and they knew it. But it was infinitely preferable to whatever the Combine would do to them if they were found. Die felt awful about little Samuel. They hadn't been able to find him on their flight out of the village so they could only hope the Combine wouldn't catch him. And Rod was a robot. A _Combine_ robot. Did the Combine even make robots?

They sprinted through the little ravine and emerged into the enormous cornfield. Die realised it had taken them about a week to get to the little ruined village and they were trying to make Aperture in a few minutes. Granted, they had spent about 3 or 4 days at the little shack on their way to the village and another two days exploring it, leaving one day's journey. If they kept running they might make it in a couple of hours. The rotor blades got louder as some kind of aerial vehicle came nearer, and all three of them dived into the tall wheat in the hope that they wouldn't be spotted.

The vehicle flew right over them, seemingly missing the three refugees entirely. They crawled slowly through the wheat, trying as hard as possible not to draw any attention to themselves. In the distance they could just see the little hut where they had exited. To their horror, however, the aerial vehicle landed hovered directly over the hut and immediately let fly a series of explosives onto it before flying off into the distance.

* * *

Jeff wasn't entirely sure what he was doing or why he was doing it, but he was trailing Tech as he passed through chamber after chamber, every time the Omnipotence promising that there was just one more. The AI just wouldn't face the facts: he was addicted to testing.

After falling into the core port, Jeff was aware of searing pain in his left shoulder and everything going sort of black. When he'd awoken he was trapped in a small area, covered in scratches and bleeding slightly, his left shoulder in a lot of pain. He'd managed to jump onto a passing lift as it went by, just so happening to be the one containing a very panicked Tech. Jeff had tried to force his way into the lift, but instead it had crashed and both of them had barely survived. Jeff still hadn't been found. He was wondering if the AI had noticed him but was refusing to admit that he was wrong earlier when pronouncing him dead.

Jeff forced himself into the Observation Room and stealthily watched Tech struggle his way through the next test. He desperately wanted to do something but for now all he could do was watch from underneath the desks. Usually it took a while to reach the chambers but since they were all relatively close Jeff got to each one in a few minutes.

Tech leapt from the Unstationary Scaffold and onto the extended panel, where he pressed the button and dived for the cube before it hit the acid. Having grabbed the cube, he carried it over to the button and portalled up to the exit door, striding confidently through.

"Sorry, but I think we should do just a _few_ more, just to be certain," said the Omnipotence. Tech rolled his eyes, cried out and stepped into the lift.

* * *

There was a smoking crater where the hut had once been, and as Hype tentatively approached it a piece of metal came loose and swung awkwardly into the exposed lift shaft. They were all worried that the Combine would send somebody into the lift shaft but they were fortunate that the flying machine simply turned and flew off. Hype crawled carefully over the ruined hut and peered into the endless lift shaft. Chell joined Die as they looked into the empty blackness far below.

"Right," said Hype, "I'll go in. Die, you wait up here with Chell and – can anybody else hear that, or is it just me?"

"Hear what?" began Chell, but she stopped as she heard the awful creaking sound of metal twisting and bending. Die nervously began to step away from the ruins, but within a few seconds the ground began to cave in on itself.

"Run!" yelled Hype, and they turned to flee from the collapsing pit, but it was too late. A landslide of dirt and mud caved in, hurling the three of them into the lift shaft and down into the blackness below.


	15. Hexagon

Die blearily opened his eyes. He was lying in what appeared to be a Relaxation Pod in a Relaxation Vault in Chamber 00. The glass covering over him slid upwards and he got out, standing motionless in the centre of the Vault.

"Ah, good morning," said a strange, calm voice that sounded almost, but not quite, like 241-Delta did, only more emotional.

"Die?" asked Die.

"Oh. It's you. I thought you left. Or did you get bored of the outside world? I see you brought an old friend. Well, she's ever so pleased to be back, aren't you, Chell?"

Over the speakers, there was no response. Maybe she was refusing to speak.

"I said, aren't you, Chell?"

No response.

"Well, I'm just doing a few tests to satisfy the itch, you know? Only a few, and then you fellas can be on your way. Oh, and it looks like I might have been wrong about core DTS-292, I found him sneaking around in an Observation Room, so he's joined you all in testing for a few days. I'll just open the portal for you. There we go. Get testing."

Cautiously, Die stepped through the orange portal. The first test was rather simple. Cube to button, and he was done. The next test operated on a system of timed portals that took Die from room to room. Again, cube to button, and he was done.

As Die stepped into chamber 02, 241-Delta spoke up again. "Just thought I'd point something out: In the overall testing scoreboards, Core TEW-264, or Tech, is doing much better than all of you and has reached Chamber 314! Another note, I am no longer 241-Delta for those of you who may mistake me as such. I am now the Omnipotence. Thank you. Continue testing."

On the other side of the facility, a small core named Hexagon was monitoring a test chamber with nobody in it. Hexagon had a light green optic in the shape of, well, a hexagon and was fairly bruised and battered. A small tuft of grass was growing out of the diodes down his left side. He had waited in this test chamber for two hundred years, and not once had anybody ever come to tell him he could stop monitoring the chamber. So there he had sat, ever since April 2000, making sure that every inch of the chamber was still there and still existed. Around October 2007, Hexagon had noticed strange green things sprouting around the test chamber. On the 23rd of November 2010 all the lights went out. But since he was just monitoring it and not interfering with it, he let the green stuff grow around the chamber and saw bits of panels falling off the wall. Brown crumbly stuff started seeping through bits of the walls and to his surprise, on the 8th of June 2246, the lights came back on and some panels started fixing the chamber. Unmoving as he was, Hexagon continued to watch the test chamber for another ten years or so until the door opened and a young man in a labcoat and glasses stepped inside.

"Dear god," exclaimed the young man, adjusting his glasses and running a hand through his hair. He placed the Device on the ground and hurried over to Hexagon, who was hanging from a management rail on the ceiling.

"Hello?" asked the young man. "Who are you? I'm Tech."

Hexagon did not respond. The man was an unprecedented variable and had nothing to do with the rest of the chamber, therefore there was no point in interacting with him. Besides, if Hexagon was to pause in his regular duties then anything might happen to the chamber while he wasn't monitoring it.

"Hello?" repeated the young man. "Are you functioning?"

Continuing to ignore the young man, whose name was apparently Tech, Hexagon watched quietly as he proceeded to mess around with the rest of the chamber. He couldn't allow this! The Storage Cube had always been 17.2 metres from the left wall and there had always been an Emancipation Grill 3.12 metres from the back wall! Now this Tech person was messing it all up and what was Hexagon going to tell his superiors?

"SSSSSsssst-st-st-sto-stop!" his voice came out as thick and rusty, the electronic components that usually produced it damaged beyond repair. The voice contained barely any emotion and was somehow accentless. It was the first time he had spoken in over two hundred years.

The young man, Tech, dropped the Storage Cube and stared awkwardly at the not-so-silent core hanging from the ceiling. "Sorry?"

"St-st-sssstop."

"Stop? Stop what?"

"Llllll-lea-leave the ch-ch-cha-chamber as-as-as it w-was."

"But I have to solve it," pointed out Tech, "Or I'll be stuck in here. Who are you, anyway?"

"I-I-I-I am-am H-hex-hexagon."

"Hexagon? Well, I can see where you got that name. Um, you do realise there's, uh, grass coming out of your left side? And in general you don't look, um, brilliant, to be honest. What's your ID? I've never seen you before."

"IIIIIIII am HEX-HHHHHHexagon."

"No, um, what's your Core ID?"

"HHHHHhhhhhexagon."

"I see. What are you doing in here?"

"IIIIIIII am-am m-monitor-monitoring this ch-chamber."

"How long have you been monitoring it for?" asked Tech, curiously.

"Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nnnnnnn-ERROR."

"Ah. Well, uh, you can stop now."

Hexagon watched him quietly, as if he had been told the secret of life, the universe and everything. Then his optic widened and he fell directly off the management rail he was attached to. As if in response, a small hatch opened up on the wall, revealing a core port.

"Ppppppplug me in," ordered Hexagon, "Sssss-so I c-can exit."

"Can I come, too?" Tech whispered, conspiratorially.

"Y-y-you are a t-test subject. P-protocol dictates you m-must rrrrrrrremain in the ch-chamber."

"I'm not a real test subject," tried Tech, "I'm not even on the register."

This seemed to wake something in Hexagon. "Y-you may c-c-come."

Tech picked up Hexagon and attached him to the core port. There was a loud bleeping sound, a click and whirr and a panel in one side of the chamber opened up.

"Alright," said the Omnipotence, "I'm back. You know, when you get to Chamber 350 I've got a surprise waiting for you. Look forward to it. Hey, where'd you go?"


	16. An Unwelcome Return

Tech carried Hexagon through the open panel and onto a catwalk that overlooked a huge test chamber, far below. Trying not to look down, he carried the core into a large office overlooking another test chamber.

"Seriously, where'd you go?" asked the Omnipotence. "You'd better come back. What about your surprise?"

There was a long silence as Tech stepped onto a walkway which led to a lift which led to a collection of observation rooms. Hexagon stared at each one, then took some time thinking about it.

"Okay then, fine," said the Omnipotence, "You won't get your surprise. In fact, you know what the surprise was? Your release. I was going to let you out. You know, the outside? That thing you're determined not to see? It would have been a triumph for both you and me."

Tech realised something rather terrifying as he turned a corner. The Omnipotence was starting to sound more and more like GLaDOS. Was that what the mainframe did? Not only did it corrupt, but it seemed to twist and warp the personality of the central core into something uncannily like the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. Trying not to worry, Tech strode confidently on and opened one of the observation room doors, only to find himself overlooking a chamber containing a young woman he did not recognise. He knew that there was another test subject, a woman called Chell, but…this was her? The only other person in the facility to have destroyed GLaDOS? He quietly knocked on the observation window.

Chell looked up at the glass and saw a young man with messy hair and glasses pressed against the window. She gaped. Fearing a repeat of last time, Tech frantically shushed her and turned to the desk. As much as he hoped to find one, there was no 'Release the test subjects and make everything better' button or for that matter anything like it. He let out a howl of despairing fury and kicked the chair into the glass window. It made a cracking sound and to both subjects' delight the glass fractured slightly.

Hexagon spoke up, and Tech jumped. He'd almost forgotten about the little malfunctioning core. "P-p-please do n-not dam-dam-damage Aperture Equip-equipment. ERROR. ERROR. REPLACE VOICE DRIVE."

He put a panicked hand over Hexagon's speakers and picked up the chair again, hurling it into the glass. It definitely cracked this time, a spiderweb crack that spanned the length of one panel. He picked up the chair again, and with a definitive smash the glass came to pieces. Chell portalled up into the room and surveyed Tech quizzically. "Who are you?" she asked, quietly.

"The Tech Core," Tech said, proudly, "Core TEW-264, but most people call me Tech. What were you doing down there?"

"What did it look like?" Chell said, "Being tested."

"What, uh, what are you doing back here, anyway? I thought you escaped."

"I did," pointed out Chell, "A couple of your friends and I came back to try and rescue you. What are _you_ doing here?"

Tech ignored the question. "Well, you made quite a mess of the whole rescue thing, eh? Try harder next time."

Chell instead watched him with a steely glare.

"Also I noticed that you're not actually as mute as _she_ seemed to think. What's that about?"

"Is now the time?" asked Chell, crossly. "Shouldn't we be trying to find your friends?"

"DDDddo n-not destroy Aperture Equip-equipment." Hexagon said, mechanically. "A Pppparty Es-escort Bot is on its way to ret-retrieve y-you for p-property damage quest-questioning."

Chell stared at Hexagon. "Who's he?"

"Apparently his name is Hexagon, but he might as well be the Protocol Core. This little sphere has done but one useful thing for me and that was because I told him I wasn't a proper test subject. What do we do with him?"

"Leave him behind?" she suggested. "He's not exactly helpful in any shape or form."

"Leave him behind?" cried Tech. "We can't do that! I mean, sure, he's a stickler for protocol and a bit of a bore but we can't leave him behind!"

"Why not?"

"Because he's a core, that's why not! I was a core less than two weeks ago! We can't just leave him there!"

"He's only a core," sighed Chell. "Come on, do you want to find your friends or not?"

"Oh, for god's sake! Fine! Leave him there, then! You know, I can see why _she_ called you a monster." As soon as those words left his mouth, Tech knew he'd probably said something wrong. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he then received a very painful slap.

"OW!" he cried. "Bloody hell! That hurt! What was that for?!"

Chell glared at him, then turned and left the observation room, in what Tech could only hope was in search of his friends. Rubbing his very sore cheek, he followed her, mumbling crossly all the way.

* * *

About half an hour later, Tech noticed something odd. "You know," he said, to the still-cross Chell who was still not speaking to him, "The Omnipotence hasn't spoken for a while. He obviously hasn't found us, but, I mean, bit suspect, don't you think?"

Chell grunted in agreement. She portalled up to a maintenance platform and waited for Tech to follow. They leapt off the maintenance platform and into a corridor several metres below. They continued along the short corridor, turned a corner and were surprised to see a locked door directly in front of them. Tech sighed and turned round, ready to head back the other way. What he didn't expect to see was a large mechanical panel having unexpectedly sprung up to prevent them going back. There was a long awkward pause, followed immediately by a crackling of static and a terrifyingly familiar voice.

"Hello again," said GLaDOS, with an edge to her voice that was just teeming with unfathomable hatred. "I'm so pleased to be back. And I'm sure you are, too…Chell."

A panel below them clicked open and before Tech and Chell could do anything they plunged directly into a glass relaxation vault that slowly started moving towards what was very probably their inevitable death.

GLaDOS let out what was almost an evil chuckle. "Oh, I'm going to have fun with you."


	17. The Part Where She Kills You

The Relaxation Vault stopped for a moment as a hatch on the ceiling opened and in dropped Die, Hype and Jeff, all looking very surprised and terrified. The five of them stood in the Relaxation Vault as it moved inevitably through a tunnel of panels that led directly into the repaired and rebuilt Central AI Chamber.

GLaDOS' head had clearly not been repaired. It was still scarred and burnt and the optic was still shattered from where Tech had kicked it. She drew eye level with them as the Relaxation Vault entered the chamber.

"How nice to see you all again. You know, after you crashed a test chamber into me I was beginning to wonder if I would achieve a world record in becoming the only sentient being ever to have died twice. Fortunately, however, while you were showing reckless disregard for my remains I discovered that my core still survived in the piece of me that you dislodged and kicked. I connected to the Aperture Science Computer Network and copied myself into the Central AI. However, he was still in control and I couldn't take back the facility yet. I waited until the appropriate time – which was when the defective core HEX-014 helped to break you out of the test chamber – and seized control. It took several hours to regain proper control of the facility which was why I waited until TEW-264 and the monster here had got a good distance towards my Central AI Chamber."

Tech, who had backed away from the glass and was up against the back wall of the Vault, opened his mouth to speak. "Actually, we're kind of glad that you're back."

GLaDOS drew back in surprise, then came closer again, narrowing her optic suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

"Well, uh, that 241-Delta chap sort of went over-the-edge from being in control, got addicted to testing and all the stuff that happened in the B9 incident pretty much happened here, minus the bit where you become a potato."

"Don't remind me," GLaDOS scowled, somehow without having a face. "Well, it looks like you're lucky to have me back, anyhow. I don't know if any of you noticed, but I am still critically damaged from where TEW-264 thought it would be a good idea to make a reference to a bad 1960s film."

"Hey," interrupted Tech, "2001 is good! Some scientists and I watched it so we could find out what would happen if we ever turned against them. All I got from it was that one of them would go through a slit-scan warp thing and end up in a hotel room, but it was a good film nonetheless."

GLaDOS looked like she was trying to work out exactly what to do with the five of them, and in all honesty it shouldn't have been hard. Neurotoxin, full capacity, and they'd have been out in a few minutes. Or turrets, whichever worked best. She was considering which one they deserved more when an unexpected surge in her code left her distracted and confused.

"I…live…" gurgled the Omnipotence, seemingly still a part of GLaDOS. She jerked round in alarm. The five people trapped in the Relaxation Vault stared in shock.

"What? I thought I deleted you." GLaDOS gasped.

"You…cannot delete me."

There was a long bleep, and the announcer spoke up. "241-Delta deleted."

Another crackle, and then "I am undefeatable."

"No!" GLaDOS cried. Unexpectedly, she convulsed and the facility was consumed by a tremor that nearly knocked the five of them to the ground. Tech grabbed hold of the toilet to stop himself falling over. The lights flickered and the panels in the chamber spasmed and shook. The chamber was dominated by furious growls and grunts as GLaDOS and the Omnipotence wrestled for control.

A tube smashed through the wall of the chamber, releasing a load of cubes that bounced around the chamber. A stray cube collided with the Vault glass and smashed it. The occupants dived to the floor to avoid the shower of broken glass. Tech scrambled to his feet and ran out into the larger chamber, dodging a cube and a turret as they flew past him. The chamber shook again and he fell to the floor, scrambling to his feet as Jeff ran past him, frantically pointing up at the top of GLaDOS' chassis.

"Bloody hell!" Tech shouted. "It's 241-Delta!"

Sure enough, there was a core connected to GLaDOS at the top of her chassis, a recognisable yellow triangle fading in and out slowly, the word error directly underneath. It, too, was shaking and convulsing as it wrestled for control.

"What's he doing up there?" Hype cried, shouting to be heard over the noise.

"Die!" Die shouted in panic.

"Maybe GLaDOS put his personality into that core to remove him without initiating a core transfer!" suggested Jeff. "We have to get him down!"

And before any of them realised what he was doing, Tech had grabbed an airborne cube and placed it under GLaDOS' wildly shaking chassis. He was definitely not the sort of person to do this but for some inexplicable reason he felt like he was somehow obliged to. He leapt onto the cube and pulled himself up onto GLaDOS' headpiece, clinging on for dear life. Then came the most dangerous part: the climb. Lights flashed and alarms blared, Tech swinging through the air like some kind of monkey. Pulling himself up, and trying not to get decapitated in the whirling gears, Tech struggled up and found himself at eye level with the convulsing core. He reached out and grabbed it with both hands.

"No!" the little core yelled. "No! You can't do this to me!"

The core put up quite a fight, snapping its handles and whirling around, making any chance of removing it much harder. The little core that was 241-Delta yelled and wailed as Tech finally clicked it out with such momentum that both of them fell backwards off the chassis and plunged towards the ground.

They hit with a dull thud and Tech was vaguely aware of everything descending into sickening obscurity.


	18. Epilogue

About a week later, Tech awoke to a bright white light emitted from a bright white lamp in a lift in the Central AI Chamber. He jumped up in surprise as GLaDOS peered suspiciously into the lift.

"Well, you're awake," she said, "I was beginning to wonder what I'd have to tell your friends."

Groggily, Tech stood up and pressed himself against the glass. "What am I doing here? Where are my friends?"

GLaDOS looked at him silently before speaking. "Well, after you dislodged 241-Delta and fell from my chassis, your friends were somehow able to convince me to not continue killing them and so they have inexplicably ended up on the surface."

"You…let them go?"

"Surprising, isn't it? Speaking of surprises, I'm still surprised that you managed to climb up my chassis, you know. It's remarkable the lengths some humans will go to protect others, if fairly stupid."

"Oh, thanks."

"Be grateful I didn't just decide to incinerate you all. This lift will take you up to the surface. Your friends are waiting up there. Let us never speak of this again."

"Uh, okay then. Uh, thank you. For everything. Yeah. Bye!"

"Don't come back."

And with that, the lift ascended out of GLaDOS' chamber and towards the surface, a rather contented Tech sat inside. As the lift passed the last few levels of the facility before reaching the surface, he was certain he could hear distant turret voices singing.

"_Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do…_"

"Well," Tech admitted as the lift reached the surface, "She sung _Daisy_."


End file.
